THE M+G+R FOUNDATION

On July 16, the 197th day of 2005, there will be 168 days left in
the year.Readings of the Day:Ex
12:37-42
/ Mt
12:14-21

Highlights in history on this date:

622 - Mohammed fled Mecca. For
most Muslims, this marks the beginning of the Islamic Era.

1048 - Benedict IX, known as the "Boy Pope," resigned from the
papacy.

1054 - Pope Leo IX
delivers
an excommunication to the patriarch in Constantinople. The patriarch
then
excommunicates the pope, resulting in the East-West Schism, where
Christianity
is split into Catholic and Orthodox
churches. The schism has never been completely healed.

1096 - During the First Crusade, the Christians (Urban II was then
Pope)
carried out one of the greatest crimes in history. The "Soldiers of
Christ"
indiscriminately killed men, women, children and the elderly in
Jerusalem
- Muslims and
Jews alike. Ten
thousand
Crusaders murdered in those two days approximately 40,000 human beings.

1194 - Clare of Assisi is born.

1212 - Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa. The beginning of a long
decline
in the power of the Moors in Spain.

1251 - According to Carmelite traditions, the scapular was given
to
St. Simon Stock by the Blessed Virgin.

1533 - Atahualpa, king of the Inca empire, is executed on orders
of
conquistador Francisco Pizarro, after the Indian leader paid the
Spaniard's
ransom demand — one roomful of gold and two of silver.

1661 - The first bank notes in Europe were issued by the Bank of
Stockholm.

1774 - Russia and the Ottoman Empire signed the treaty of
Kuchuk-Kainardji,
ending their six-year war.

1858 - The final Apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes (France) takes
place.

1917 - The Bolsheviks began an attempt to seize power in Petrograd
but
were defeated. Trotsky was arrested and Lenin went into hiding.

1918 -Czar Nicholas
II, his wife Empress
Alexandra, their five children, their doctor and three attendants were
herded into the cellar of a house in Ekaterinburg. Nicholas had been
forced to abdicate a year earlier as civil war gripped the country.
The Czar and his family were lined up against a wall, a firing squad
burst
into the room and opened fire. The firing squad used bayonets to
finish them off. The "Gates of Communism" were now wide open and the
final chapter of this long and bloody, yet preventable saga, is about
to be played out.

1920 - China joins the newly founded League of Nations

1921 - Greek forces defeat Turks at Kutania in Turkey.

1925 - First elected parliament in Iraq opens in Baghdad.

1940 - Hitler gives orders to prepare the invasion of Britain.

1941 - German forces pierce Soviet Stalin Line and take Smolensk.

1942 - Nearly 14,000 Jews were arrested in Paris as part of a Nazi
roundup
of the Jewish people in France.

1995 - Four months after they strayed across the border into Iraq,
two
Americans are released from their maximum-security prison.

1996 - In Kiev, Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko narrowly escapes an
assassination
attempt when a bomb explodes in his motorcade.

1997 - Parliament of the Yugoslav Federation elects Slobodan
Milosevic
as president in a hastily organized vote condemned by opposition
parties.

1998 - The United Nations says it is pulling its human rights
mission
out of Rwanda after it failed to reach an agreement with the government
on a new mandate.

1999 - A plane piloted by John F. Kennedy Jr., son of the late
president,
disappears over the sea north of Long Island, New York. The plane also
carried his wife and sister-in-law. The wreckage is found five days
later
and the bodies are recovered.

2000 - Total Lunar Eclipse (flanked by two Partial Solar Eclipses
in
the same month.)

2001 - Russia and China sign their first friendship treaty in more
than
half a century.

2004 - The Presbyterian Church has voted to
begin a
process of divestment from companies that
do business with Israel. The Presbyterians
are the first major Christian denomination to call for such a move.

If you wish to contact The M+G+R Foundation, please Click
Here and follow the instructions.

You may freely reproduce and distribute this document as long as:
(1) Appropriate credit is given as to its source; (2) No changes are
made
in the text without prior written consent; and (3) No charge is made
for
it.